More than a million Jewish children were living in the region that was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. So great was the barbarism of the Holocaust that not even children were spared. In the camps and ghettos, children were among those deemed unfit to work and were exterminated. Learn about the thousands of Jewish children who went into hiding and the rescuers who helped them. Discover how the resistance offered false papers enabling some to live openly while others hid in attics and barns. Investigate the danger of being discovered by saying or doing the wrong thing.
During Adolf Hitler's reign of terror in World War Two, six million Jewish people lost their lives. The survivors of the Holocaust will never forget the terrible things that happened to them and their loves ones, and hopefully the rest of the world will not either. On this web site you can read the biographies of actual children who were forced to endure Hitler's atrocities. These children were not able to make it out alive.
An article from the Holocaust Encyclopedia that uses photographs, eyewitness accounts, and video programs that can be viewed with a media player, to analyze the social impact of the Nazi persecution on Jewish children in the period before and during the Second World War. The historical essay Children explains how despite the harassment and punishment that many child victims faced in Germany and other occupied countries during this era, some individuals were able to hide and participate in resistance movements, while others escaped with the help of rescue programs such as Kindertransport.
This is a well written and documented site, full of web links and photographs. However, the information presented will leave you deeply saddened and wondering how something like this could actually happen. During World War II, the German army was responsible for the deaths of millions of children due to their religion, race, handicapping conditions and inability to perform hard labor. You will have the opportunity to follow the lives of many children and discover the fate of millions more as you explore this amazing, historical, and unbelievably moving site.
After the end of World War Two in 1945, a group of orphaned Jewish children fled to Canada in search of a home where they would be safe from the horrors of the Holocaust. On this web site you can read their amazing true stories. You can begin with their lives before the Holocaust, want happened to them during the war, and how they managed to stick together and escape with their lives. There are pictures and biographies of some of the war orphans as well.
What if you had to get on a train going to another country, not knowing if you would ever see your family again? Ten thousand Jewish children escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport. As Nazi violence against Jewish people got worse, the British government agreed to let children come there for safety. The young refugees stayed in youth hostels or with foster families. Their parents couldn't come. Find out what happened to them after the war.
Over a million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust. Annelies Marie Frank was one of them. Born in 1929, she fled with her family from Frankfurt to Amsterdam when she was five years old. By 1940, the Germans occupied Amsterdam as well. Two years later, they went into hiding. Read about the secret attic apartment and the former business colleagues that helped the Franks. Find out where the Franks were sent after they were discovered. Analyze how the diary survived and became a symbol for the children destroyed by the Holocaust.
One Thousand Children: Georgia's Role in the Rescue of Jewish Children is an online exhibition that presents you with the stories of German Jewish children who settled in Georgia from 1938 to 1940. It examines the dangerous political nature of their escape, adapting to life alone in a foreign country, and the fate of their relatives still in Europe. You will find information on refugees, displaced persons, and genocide survivors. These children became known as Georgia's One Thousand Children.
Defying the orders of the Portuguese prime minister, Aristides de Sousa Mendes issued visas that allowed thousands of Jewish refugees to leave France as the Nazis occupied the country. You've probably heard of Oskar Schindler, but he wasn't the only one who helped Jews escape the Holocaust. From transporting children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to infiltrating a concentration camp, unsung heroes saved lives. For his efforts to protect Jews from death, Mendes was publicly disgraced and reduced to poverty. The Portuguese dictator was sympathetic to Hitler's cause, but Mendes quoted the Portuguese constitution to his staff.
Enthusiasm and oratory skills made Joseph Goebbels indispensible to Hitler's control of Germany. Even though most people didn't like him, his ideas proved to be mesmerizing to the masses. He never fulfilled his parents' dream that he would be a priest or his own dream of literary greatness. His talent for political rhetoric was recognized by Hitler and Goebbels became his propaganda chief. The news media and artistic expressions were all forced to conform to Nazi ideology. Goebbels incited riots, gave rousing wartime speeches, and created an atmosphere where the Holocaust was allowed to happen.
Learn about the infamous Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann from PBS's American Experience web site. You will discover how obsessed Eichmann was with the Jewish problem and how he approached the systematic deportation of European Jews to the death camps in Poland. Find out how Eichmann became famous for his ruthless dedication to the slaughter of Europe's Jews and his extreme efficiency in carrying out his mission. This biography follows Eichmann to his trial and his execution in 1962.
Forensic scientists are excavating a cemetery in Warsaw that has great interest to Jews. They’re combing a mass grave of tangled skeletons of resistance fighters, and one in particular: Captain Witold Pilecki, a non-Jewish Pole. Pilecki showed great courage volunteering to be captured and imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp so the world would know the atrocities they were committing. He escaped Auschwitz in 1943 after two and a half years, rejoined the underground resistance, was arrested in 1947 by the communist secret security, and executed in 1948.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia presents you with an article on the man known as the Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal. The article contains information on Wiesenthal's efforts following his survival of the Holocaust. You will find the name of the center he opened in Austria and learn what he did to encourage the prosecution of Nazis. Information on the war criminals he helped capture is provided and you will find a newspaper article on Wiesenthal from the New York Times.
There are many people who worked to save the Jewish people during the Holocaust that we don't often hear about. On this site you will read about a German man who saved hundreds of Jews by ensuring them a job in the factories he ran during the war. You will also learn about how he has been recognized for his remarkable deeds.
The Nazis confined Jews in occupied territories in ghettos and forced labor camps. Nearly 100 factories were run in the Lodz ghetto. Laborers were considered expendable, with those who could no longer work being shot or deported. Those in concentration camps were forced to work until they died. In addition to the Jews, enemies of the state were also sent to work in German industries. Hundreds of labor camps were built near industrial plants. Private enterprises often relied on forced labor to increase wartime production.
The Jewish quarters in Venice, Rome, and Muslim countries were sometimes known as ghettos. The Jews of Lodz were collected into a closed ghetto, since evacuation for the final solution could not occur immediately. Walled streets allowed trolleys to continue to run through the ghetto. Ghettos provided cheap labor, and workers were housed in guarded barracks. The police and local government helped the Nazis. Overcrowding, malnutrition, and poor sanitation led to many deaths in the Warsaw ghetto before deportation. Ghettos were established in poor, crowded neighborhoods. In Warsaw, both Poles and Jews were forcibly relocated to create the ghetto.
As British and American leaders met at a resort and decided they couldn't really help the European Jews, the Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto took matters into their own hands. Although the resistance might seem hopeless, it was the only chance they had. When the Nazis occupied Warsaw, they walled off all the Jewish people in a prison-like ghetto. To be found outside the ghetto meant death. Within the ghetto; inhabitants suffered from hunger, disease, and overcrowding. When the Nazis deported most of the ghetto, those who remained decided to resist deportation with a few stockpiled weapons.
The unofficial start of the Holocaust was marked by the Kristallnacht attacks, which took place on November 9, 1938. The Night of Broken Glass is examined in an article that also includes information on witness accounts. You will find details related to the events that led up to this event, the plans that were made, and the destruction that took place. After you discover the details of the Nazi attacks on Jewish communities on this historic night you will find a discussion on the anti-Semitic measures that followed the Kristallnacht.
Breaking glass shattered the quiet of a night in 1938 as Nazi storm troopers destroyed thousands of Jewish businesses and hundreds of synagogues. Kristallnacht was when many Jewish homes were destroyed and men were deported in Germany. Non-Jews were invited by the Nazis to spit, jeer, and throw mud at the Jews. The official excuse for the violence was an assassination by a Polish Jewish student, who wanted the world to be aware of what was happening to the Jews.
As you contemplate the information in this online course about the Holocaust, you will be asked to also think about the ideas and incidents that prompted this horrific event in history. Anti-Semitism and eugenics are discussed and there are extensive notes about Nazi ideology and anti-Jewish policies. Learn about the terminology used by the Nazis and the mass production of death. This course debates who was to blame for the Holocaust and discusses the aftermath. Several activities are included to help you further explore this topic.
The Holocaust Explained tells you all about the development of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic ideas and how they were put into action from the beginning to the Final Solution. You will learn about the building of ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps. Information on the experiences of Holocaust survivors and information on people such as Anne Frank is included as well. As you explore The Holocaust Explained you will get to examine many photographs and primary sources.
The Holocaust Museum in Houston presents a source of education and a place to honor those who survived the Holocaust. The museum is located in Houston, Texas. Learn about the museum and view pictures from Houston. This report includes many links to articles including A Community Remembers. Photographs, documents, artifacts, and film footage show life in pre-war Europe. Read about a registry of Holocaust survivors who settled in Texas. Do you know what the Butterfly Project honors?
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies' Virtual Museum provides you with primary sources such as slides, film, video, and audio clips that are accessible through an interactive table of contents. You will find a large collection of online museum exhibitions, a collection of art work that represents the artists' response to the Holocaust and genocide, and a collection of photographs of Holocaust memorials. A list of related exhibits is also provided along with a collection of histories and narratives and many teaching resources.
This web site is dedicated to the memories of the six million Jewish people that were brutally murdered by Adolf Hitler during World War Two. You can read biographies of the victims of the concentration camps, as well as those of Nazis. There is poetry here too, and pictures that expose the brutality of Auschwitz, one of the most famous death camps. You can also see a timeline of World War Two that centers around Hitler and his actions.
Official Website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The index includes links to visiting the museum, accessing museum resources through searchable catalogs, and a description of on-line exhibitions that are only link away. An extensive history section gives readers the chance to explore the history of race relations throughout World War II. Information on preventing genocide and research materials are available as well. The Holocaust Encyclopedia is available in Spanish, French, and several other languages.
The Holocaust resulted in the deaths of over nine and one half million people from Jewish populations. This collection of statistics demonstrates this tragedy in numbers. You will find a list of countries listed in order of from having the highest Jewish population to the lowest. Next to each country's name you will find the number of Jewish people from that country, the estimated percent of that population killed, the estimated number of people killed, and the number of survivors. At the end of the list you will find the totals for each column.
Learn about the events that led to the Holocaust, beginning with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis coming into power legally in 1930. The Nazis passed laws that expelled Jews from political leadership and government employment. Hitler approved a boycott of Jewish businesses. The government enacted laws segregating the Jews from the Aryans; Jews lost their rights as citizens. In 1938 the Nazis seized Jewish property, burned synagogues, and forced 30,000 Jews to emigrate. Few countries wanted to take in impoverished Jewish refugees. The war meant new policies of euthanasia in 1941 that eventually led to a plan of extermination.
A systematic extermination of European Jews, the Holocaust was carried out by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany even as they tried to gain dominion over Europe. Other groups targeted for extermination included those who were physically or mentally handicapped, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and political opponents. Nearly six million Jews died in the genocide at Nazi concentration camps across Europe. Investigate food allotments in Poland based on labor and ethnicity. Internment camps showed evidence of starvation, overcrowding, and cruelty. Hundreds died each day in concentration camps.
Six million Jewish people were killed in Europe during World War II simply because they were Jewish. Nearly 7 out of 10 Jewish people died in many countries. The Nazis also killed gypsies, homosexuals, and disabled people along with any politicians or journalists that spoke out against them. Investigate why the Holocaust happened and how the people died. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis thought they were better than everybody else. They rounded up people from certain racial and religious groups and made them travel to concentration camps in cattle cars.
Across Europe, the deportation of Jewish people occurred throughout World War II. Whether occupied by or allied with Germany, fifteen countries activated plans to deport and exterminate the Jewish people. In Western Europe, deportations occurred in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Norway. Only the Danish Jews escaped Hitler's plans, by fleeing to Sweden. Other countries that deported Jewish people included Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Greece, and Serbia. Learn about Germany's allies who delayed deportation of their own Jewish citizens, including Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, and Finland.
One of the most perplexing questions of the twentieth century is how the Holocaust could have occurred. Who actually came up with the plan and when did it begin? Visit The Holocaust Explained web site to find some answers. Read the facts and find out about the roles of Adolf Hitler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hermann Goering in what became known as the final solution. This site includes photographs of Heydrich and Goering and includes quotations from them as well as from Hitler. This site includes links to much additional information.
During World War 2, Danish Jews were ferried out of the country on fishing boats as ordinary citizens joined the Danish resistance in a mass rescue movement. Thousands were taken to neutral Sweden and Denmark had one of the highest survival rates for European Jews. Although Germany occupied Denmark for most of the war, Danish police refused to cooperate with them and Danish Jews were not forced to identify themselves. Learn more about this massive rescue operation at the United States Holocaust Museum. Read the story of one man who helped transport over one thousand Jewish refugees to safety.
Past history can teach us a lot of things about people and our world. Today we are lucky to have the right to voice our opinions against groups and organizations. Take a look back at the Holocaust and see what happened to a group of young college students who spoke out against the Nazi regime. This story will teach you about dissent during this time and you will learn about the leaflet they called The White Rose.
When she was eleven years old, Judith Pinczovsky and her family were transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Once there, she endured many long years of hunger, pain, and hard work. Along with her mother and sister, she was taken to two other camps and she never saw her father again. Though she saw many people die, and she was very sick herself many times, she credits her mother for keeping her and her sister alive. You can read her stories, and others like it, at this Holocaust web site.
Welcome to the terrifying horror that was the life of a Jewish person during the Holocaust. This web site offers a detailed biography and synopsis of a program created by PBS about three teenagers who each found their own ways to fight the Holocaust. You can read the true stories of Barbara Rodbell, Shulamit Lack, and Faye Schulman, and discover the true heroism in each of them. This site also offers an interactive timeline of the Holocaust.
Voices of the Holocaust is a collection of oral history testimonies from Jewish people who came to live in Britain during or after WWII. These testimonies are personal stories that describe life during Hitler's reign. You can listen to survivor testimonies and find information on the background of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, the yellow star, Jewish religion and culture, Ann Frank, Jewish policemen in the ghetto, and the response of other countries. You can also examine references from maps, a chronology, and a glossary. There is even a section filled with related activities and a section designed just for teachers.
The Jewish people were condemned to death in the Holocaust simply because they were Jewish. Out of a civilized nation came one of the worst atrocities in history. Sonia Weitz survived five concentration camps. There were hangings even in the camp without gas chambers. Many years later, she remembers the smell of Auschwitz. At Birkenau, there was no food or bunks after the death march. She had never seen an African-American until she saw the horrified face of an Allied soldier who had come to set them free.
Watch an interview with one of the Holocaust survivors who were saved by Schindler's List. She was 11 when she had to go to the ghetto. Before that, she had family and friends and went to school. She grew up with prejudice and knew about pograms before it happened in Poland. Back in the ghetto after the war, she found a few scattered family pictures in an attic. Watching the movie was like experiencing it all over again for her.
This Web site provides a library of oral histories from survivors of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jewish people. Visitors can choose from over fifty interviews of survivors. The text transcript of the interview is available online along with the audio portion of the interview. The interviews cover a wide range of topics as they apply to each individual. Topics include family life before the war, religious life, the separation of family members, life in the concentration camps and ghettos, liberation, post-war life and more.
Designed for Bar and Bat Mitzvah-age students, this excellent web site from the Museum of Jewish Heritage features twelve first-person accounts of Holocaust survivors told through video, narratives and primary documents. Students can gain a personal connection to history and examine issues of ethics and personal responsibility. Begin with the student instructions and then explore the survivor stories to understand the challenges each survivor faced. In addition to the narratives, there are video testimonies, timelines of world events, maps, additional resources and project suggestions.
The Fortunoff Video Archive consists of more than 4,100 videotaped stories from the witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust. This site allows you to download pieces of those interviews, like the one with Rabbi Baruch G, who survived forced labor in Mlawa, Poland. His family was later torn apart when they were transported to the Concentration Camps. He later found his mother and his brother, but never saw his father and his sister again.
Read or listen to over 50 personal testimonies of Holocaust survivors from World War II. Freddie Knoller was 17 years old when he was sent to Auschwitz. Most people did not survive, but he was determined to so he could “tell the world about the barbarism of the cultured people of Germany.” But not all Germans were behind the Nazi regime. A group of students and their professor formed the ‘White Rose’ group and began spreading leaflets around Munich that said, “We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!”
More than 1000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses are available at the web site of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute. The search box allows you to search for a video by entering a name or a subject. Listen to the life stories of citizens from many countries to learn about the impact of the Holocaust on individuals, communities and society as a whole. The built-in encyclopedia and glossary are excellent tools to use with the videos.
Fate has placed upon the survivors of the Holocaust an unprecedented painful burden --that of revealing to the world the excruciating and most humiliating experiences of their lives. World War II began with Adolph Hitler's campaign against the Jews. The escalation of his crusade led to the extermination of many Jews and other undesirables. I Survived the Holocaust includes historical facts and stories about the Holocaust. Many authentic photographs from this period are presented here for you to view. This Web page is a tribute to the survivors of the Holocaust.
What would you do with your life if you faced certain death every day, and yet in the end you managed to survive? If you were Elie Wiesel, you would have written many books about your experience, and you would have also founded several organizations for humanity and the survivors of the Holocaust. Elie did survive the Holocaust, and on this web site you can read his biography and learn about his foundation and what it does for humanity.
Anti-Semitism is not just a thing of the past. Take a journey with eight religious leaders to the historic Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camp sites. The reason for their trip was to address the denial of the Holocaust and the growing anti-Semitism in Muslim communities. Read the message contained in the joint statement issued by the leaders that calls Holocaust denial baseless, ignorant and hateful. Learn about their hope for more understanding and partnership among Jewish and Muslim people.
Anne Frank was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the camp where she died. As you take a virtual field trip you can view a map of Bergen-Belsen and find out what it was like. A British journalist visited the camp after the war ended and reported on his findings. As you listen to his report on the atrocities he witnessed you can watch a slideshow of images related to Bergen-Belsen. The presentation lasts approximately seven minutes.
A Jesuit priest describes why he ran away when Jewish people were being transported to concentration camps. The trains taking them to the camps went right through his village. He deeply regrets not doing anything to protest or try to stop it even though he knows doing so would mean risking his life. A Polish Jew describes when they were put on the wagons for transport. His disabled grandma asked for help getting on the wagon and was shot by a soldier. At a work camp, they were forced to make ammunition out of deadly chemicals.
Heroes and Villians
Ghettos
Holocaust
Survivor Stories
Concentration Camps